


The Act of Balancing

by a_stankova



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Magical Pregnancy, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past Abuse, Protective Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 07:21:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_stankova/pseuds/a_stankova
Summary: whatever is done for love, always occurs beyond good and evil– Friedrich NietzscheThe Black Fairy comes after Emma, and Regina isn't prepared to let it lie.





	The Act of Balancing

**Author's Note:**

> Hey lovelies! Time for a new fic!  
> Takes place during the Black Fairy's curse. For the purposes of this piece, Hook died at the end of the Dark Swan arc and no rescue mission to the underworld was launched.
> 
> Slight trigger warning for rape in this chapter, nothing overly graphic but still.  
> Hope you all enjoy, comments are appreciated!  
> I'm @turtledove_51 on Twitter, come say hi!

The days here at Storybrooke Medical Centre are long, and painfully monotonous. Time is marked by the coming of meals and medications, and there isn’t much to do in between eating and self-treating except come up with new things to talk to the walls about.

Emma has taken to thinking about death, its concept and all of its unknown elements. Some die younger than others, some more painfully; some die of old age, in no pain at all. Some die quickly, in the time taken to blink, and some die slowly, holding onto their existence until they can no longer. Some die fighting, in war or in hospital; some die surrendering to superiority, running until they trip up. What a cowardly way to die, she thinks: tripping, falling, screaming, begging, before squeezing your eyes shut and hoping your heart gives out first, for the sakes of haste and pain.

More specifically, she thinks about her own death – not the manner in which, more the process itself. Thinks about what it feels like. The fear, the calm, the wait. She thinks about how it smells, _if_ it smells. And what do you see? Does the world go black, or white, or purple? Is there a Heaven, a Hell, or indeed a place in between? And if there is, which plane would she belong to? Would there be another organism for her immortal soul to inhabit, or would she just simply _stop_?

Maybe it depends on the kind of person you are, and really, she’s okay with not knowing. She’s lived life in the dark, fraught with uncertainty and change – it’s probably why she suits the schedule of mental-patient life so well now. It’s the most organised life has ever been.

She’s been confined here for as long as she can remember, another addition to the giant melting pot of crazies and criminals. If she’s not with food or drugs or her own dark thoughts, she’s sitting by the window, looking out over Storybrooke and searching for imperfections that don’t exist.

But they should be there, she thinks, they should be. It frustrates her, so she moves to the rec room, grabs a blank canvas and sets up in a quiet corner. She draws for hours sometimes, gets her hands dirty with jagged pieces of charcoal and makes harsh strokes and broken lines, and by the time the hour is up, she has something that resembles a woman, beautiful but faceless.

But no, she _isn’t_ faceless. Emma can see her face in her mind, can see the skin on her lip, can see her eyes as clarifying as fire. Emma signs the bottom _Regina_ in ragged cursive, because she’s absolutely certain that that name is the only one that feels right.

They take one look at it and tell her the same thing that they’ve been telling her forever – she’s not real. None of her drawings are. Not _Regina_ , not _Mom and Dad,_ not _Killian._

And it confuses Emma, because it directly contradicts everything that her son tells her. 

Henry – her kind, warm-hearted boy, who she’s sure only means well – visits three times a week, always with the same storybook and always with the same determination that Emma must hold onto her belief, must not lose sight of who she really is. She wants to believe it, at least entertain it, but she’s a mother and she has responsibilities, so she pushes her own convictions down and refutes his claims that her memories are, in fact, real.

Because it _can’t_ be true, right? Fairytales aren’t real, and families don’t magically find each other after decades of being parted thanks to a scorned woman’s curse. She wants to believe it, of course she does; she wants Snow and Charming to be her parents, she wants to be Sheriff, she wants Regina - Hell, she thinks she even wants the pain of mourning the lover she is told she didn’t actually lose. 

But none of it is real, and none of those people exist. There’s only Emma, and her son, and, of course, his other mother.

Madam Mayor  –  Fiona, she’s called, but in Emma’s mind she sees a different woman – drops by like she always does on a Tuesday morning; Emma is by her favourite window, and doesn’t get up when she walks in, doesn’t see the point. There is nothing new that Emma can take away from their rather one-sided conversation; mostly the Mayor reinstates her legal right over Henry, drops the obligatory hint at possession of a superior team of attorneys and mentions briefly the state’s view on diminished capacity.

“I just wanna get better,” Emma supplies the automatic, expected response, though her eyes flicker down with quiet determination when she continues with “I just wanna get my life back and be better for Henry.”

“Don’t expect you’ll be playing happy families, Miss Swan,” Fiona bites out, smirking slightly. “Henry is still _my_ son.”

Emma cringes – _Miss Swan_ has always sounded strange in her mouth – but she presses her lips together and says nothing.

Conversation takes a strange turn then, and the entire structure of the rest of Emma’s Tuesday is thrown off. Madam Mayor’s face softens inexplicably, and she nods out to the sea that’s just visible out the window.

“Would you like to take a walk along the docks?”

It might be the drugs, or something she ate, or the general fatigue that clings to her bones these days. Emma’s not sure why, but she finds herself standing to follow the woman out, reaching for the coat that’s been lying abandoned over the back of a chair for weeks.

They walk along the waterfront, walk until they’ve run out of water, and suddenly they’re in front of a huge white mansion eclipsed by greenery and beauty and something is _very_ wrong.

Emma accepts the whiskey that’s handed to her, more than once. Her head is pounding now, racing to keep up, to question everything around her. She’s been in this room before, when had that been? She remembers that clock on the mantelpiece, remembers the coffee table and the carpet.

It smells wrong, smells off, but how can it? How can she have been here before?

The fire burns slow under the clock but Emma’s never been colder. Is this real? Is _she_ real?

She blinks through the haze in her eyes, turns to Fiona for help, for clarity. Her eyes fill with tears when she realises that Fiona is gone and she’s with a man now - a familiar man, a man she vividly remembers kissing, fucking, killing. 

She groans when he kisses her throat, asks for her medication because this isn’t real, this isn’t right, this is just her mind playing tricks on her, this is her brain trying to _destroy_ her.

She finds herself on her back, her shirt halfway up her stomach and her jeans down around her ankles, and something warm lathes over the place on her hip where her birthmark is. Her bones are cement, solid, don’t allow that little part of her brain that protests, to prevail. She’s distracted from the whirlpool in her head by a soft tongue on her clit, and she groans again, presses her face into the pillow because she knows, she knows what’s coming next. 

She expects the sudden piercing intrusion; her body fights to part, to make room, but each movement is hard and uncomfortable and comes too fast for her muddled brain to be able to keep up.

She closes her eyes and pretends she’s underwater, convinces herself just enough for the noise in her head to subside a little. Maybe, she thinks, this is part of the process. Even if it is just a dream, even if it is just a mind game, maybe doing this will allow her to let go of the undeniable guilt and sadness she feels whenever this man’s face flickers through her thoughts.

When she opens her eyes again, she’s back in the hospital; her jacket is still draped over the back of the chair and her latest drawing of Regina sits proudly on her desk, exactly where she’d left it.

She stares at the wall, finds herself thinking about death again, and what it means to dream about those who aren’t real.

 

 

Curses, at this point, are overrated and cliche, but Regina would be lying if she were to say she hadn’t panicked for a moment thinking that the heroes might not win this time. After all, all they’d ever known – every kingdom, every realm, every fairytale – had been collapsing in on them, crashing towards them and threatening to wipe them all out of existence.

Regina had grabbed onto Snow and her sister and closed her eyes, and in her moment of panic she’d sent out a silent prayer that Emma and Henry be spared, be safe and happy together in a world where no-one was out to hurt them.

But, of course (and how had she doubted it, really), good triumphs over evil – like watching the cosmos in reverse, everything had been restored in time, returned to its original state like nothing had happened, and they all, too, had been whisked back home, to their quaint little town in Maine.

But something is wrong in Storybrooke. Regina senses it immediately, feels it in the air around them. Her chest constricts at the thought of Henry or Emma being in danger. Closing her eyes again, she thinks of the two missing members of their family, allows the worry in her heart to guide her magic and take them all to where they need to be.

 

 

Emma will look back on this day and refer to it as ‘the day’.

Henry is behind her somewhere, and she’s thankful that he’s safe. A rush of magic in the air tells her that Regina has made it home, that all of them have. She’s relieved, but she doesn’t look. She can’t.

It’s not that Fiona is so captivating. It’s that she’s toying with her, _lying_ to her, and Emma has her magic back now so she knows she needs to calm down or else she’s going to blow Regina’s office to all hell.

But she can’t stop shaking, can’t stop _panicking._ What is Fiona trying to tell her? What is she saying?

Her parents call out to her, and she hears their footsteps move towards her – the hand she throws out to the side stops them in place. She needs them to stop, needs everything to stop.

Fiona just smirks at her, like she can sense her inner turmoil. It makes Emma angry, makes her magic spark furiously at the tip of her fingers. Why can’t her brain catch up? What is she missing?

Suddenly Fiona is in front of her, smells all too familiar, and her hand is reaching for Emma’s hip.

The exact same spot where her half-moon birthmark hides.

“That’s right, darling,” Fiona grins wickedly, watches as Emma’s face turns ashen and her whole body freezes. “I’m sure the real Killian would have agreed that you really were _such_ a good lay.”

Behind her, Snow gasps, overcome with horror, and falls into the tense, trembling arms of her husband; his face betrays his anger, burning red and furious. Zelena thinks fast and grabs Henry before the boy can lunge, holds him to her body with one arm and can’t help but be nervous at the way his breathing comes fast and hard. The silence that seems to stretch around them is hostile, fragile, set to go nuclear at any given point.

 

Regina, however, holds nothing back. She used to be the goddamn Evil Queen, and right now, she doesn’t give a damn if the whole building explodes. She takes one look at Emma, who by this point has sunk to her knees, shaking and desolate, and her heart breaks with rage she hasn’t felt in a long time.

She takes four angry strides towards the Black Fairy and strikes her hard across the face with her fist, fury boiling like poison in her blood. “You sick bitch,” she snarls, grabbing hold of Fiona's lapels and holding her at arm's length.

Fiona just laughs, spits blood and looks over Regina's shoulder, to the blonde who is shaking and silently weeping.

“No!” Regina growls then, shaking her with brutal force. “Don't you even look at her, you hear me? You so much as say her _name_ and I will show you _just_ what I am capable of!”

“You think I’m scared of you?” Fiona hisses lowly. “You’re _nothing_ here, Regina. You’ve gone _soft._ ”

“Say that again,” Regina demands darkly, her eyes turning black. “ _Say that again_.”

“Mom,” Henry calls out, his voice thick and nervous.

It gives Regina enough pause for Fiona to laugh and disappear, with the knowledge that she’d just been proven right.

Snow is by Emma’s side, holding her and letting her cry silently into her shoulder. Emma clutches at her back, her fists white and unsteady, and Regina, through the deafening sound of her angry heart, realises that she has never been more bloodthirsty in her _life_.


End file.
